Desktop users could soon see Facebook Stories in their browser

Facebook users that favor the larger screen could soon have access to friend’s Stories without the mobile app.

Facebook Stories could soon be migrating over to desktop users. The self-deleting 24-hour-daily logs are being tested in desktop browsers, though the social media platform says it expects to roll out Facebook Stories on desktops to more users.

The feature, appearing only to select users for testing, shows the same Facebook Stories mobile circles on the top of the right-hand column in the News Feed on a desktop browser. Friends (and now public figures) that have added to their story will pop up in those circles, for followers to view their daily adventures.

Stories are becoming common across multiple social media networks, though still remain largely a mobile feature. The idea, started by Snapchat, is to share photos of your day, which are then automatically deleted for starting a new visual log the next day. Facebook Stories are directly related to Facebook Camera, another Snapchat-inspired option that allows mobile users to take pictures with augmented reality-selfie effects.

With Facebook only confirming the test of the feature, it is unclear how just how the mobile platform will migrate to the desktop, including whether or not the option supports uploading or only viewing. With Facebook Camera playing a large role in how users add to their Stories, desktop users may be limited to viewing other stories, but that may not be the case.

Facebook Stories launched at the start of 2017 after the company successfully debuted Instagram Stories last year. The feature on Instagram quickly overtook Snapchat’s user count in just a few months and now, a year later, numbers around 250 million daily users. On Instagram’s one-year anniversary of the feature, the Facebook-owned platform said that half of all the businesses on Instagram use Stories.

While Facebook has not offered numbers for its version of Stories, the sharing style has not appeared to gain as many users. Speculation for why the similar feature hasn’t caught on as quickly ranges from Facebook’s different demographics compared to Snapchat’s younger user base to the idea that there is no need for another way to share outside the news feed. That has not stopped Facebook from refining the option, allowing users that allow public followers to access the feature and now, testing the option for desktop users.